WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump will seek $8.6 billion in his new budget to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall, two administration officials said Sunday.
The plan likely sets up another showdown with Congress, which has resisted giving the president more money for his signature campaign promise.
Larry Kudlow, the White House's top economic adviser, acknowledged the planned request for border-wall funding in an interview on Fox News Sunday. Asked if it will mean a new budget fight with Congress, Kudlow responded, "I suppose there will be. I would just say that the whole issue of the wall, of border security, is of paramount importance. We have a crisis down there. I think the president has made that case very effectively."
"He's going to stay with his wall, and he's going to stay with the border security theme," Kudlow added. "I think it's essential."
The president has argued that criminals, terrorists and drugs are flooding into the United States from across the southern border.
Trump's request would more than double the $8.1 billion already potentially available to the president after he declared a national emergency at the border, circumventing Congress, which refused his funding demands.
The two people briefed on the president's plan said it will include a $5 billion request for the Department of Homeland Security to continue building sections of a wall along the Mexico border, and another $3.6 billion for the Defense Department's military construction budget to erect more sections of a wall.
The White House believes that the money, plus the funds freed by the emergency declaration, will let the government finish wall construction along 722 miles of the border, according to a senior administration official.
The people describing the request spoke on the condition of anonymity because the budget had not been made public before today's official release. Reuters first reported the $8.6 billion figure.
Leading Democrats immediately rejected the president's border request.
"Congress refused to fund his wall, and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York.
The two lawmakers said the money "would be better spent on rebuilding America," citing education and workforce development.
Trump's critics, including many in the GOP, say that the strategic deployment of technology and monitoring, as well as a new approach to the processing of asylum cases, can do more to address the spike in arrivals of migrants at the southern border than any edifice.
The proposal comes before the Senate's vote this week on whether to terminate Trump's national emergency declaration. The Democratic-led House already did so, and some of Trump's Republican allies in the Senate are expected to follow suit.
Many lawmakers feel the president's declaration takes congressional authority away from them and that it threatens important military construction projects.
"There are projects there that take care of the men and women that keep us safe that are going to be impacted," Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, said on CNN's State of the Union.
Hurd, one of 13 House Republicans who supported the effort last month to nullify Trump's emergency declaration, conceded that Congress has given the president certain budgeting authorities during times of emergency, but said, "I think we need to call that back."
While Congress appears to have enough votes to reject Trump's action, it does not have enough to overturn his pledged veto.
Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures that he had met with Trump "a couple of times" over the past week and that "he's going to veto this, and his veto will be sustained."
ROSY FORECAST
Officials on Sunday confirmed that the border wall request was part of Trump's spending blueprint for the 2020 budget year that begins Oct. 1. The $8.6 billion request represents less than 0.3 percent of a more than $4 trillion budget.
Kudlow said Trump's budget proposal, which sets the stage for negotiations, "points a steady glide path" toward lower spending and borrowing as a share of the nation's economy.
He also told Fox News Sunday that there was no reason to "obsess" about deficits, and expressed confidence that economic growth would top 3 percent in 2019 and beyond, bringing the budget into balance in 15 years. Others have predicted lower growth and deficits beyond the 2030s.
Trump has previously said that the budget can be balanced "relatively quickly," but aides say the 15-year plan is needed because the president has instructed them not to pursue any structural changes to Medicare, the health care program for millions of older Americans.
However, the budget set to be released today does propose cutting $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and other health care programs over the next decade by turning over more control to states, according to a summary reviewed by The Washington Post.
Medicaid is a health care program for low-income and disabled Americans, run jointly by states and the federal government. Some Republicans and the White House have said it is wasteful, while many Democrats and other Republicans have sought to expand the program to provide more benefits for the poor.
Most nondefense programs would be cut by at least 5 percent. The plan would cut $327 billion from a range of welfare programs, including those that provide food and housing assistance. Those cuts would be achieved in part by imposing mandatory work requirements for certain recipients.
It would cut another $207 billion by making changes to student loan programs over 10 years and an additional $200 billion by changing federal retirement programs and the U.S. Postal Service.
The budget would call for severe reductions at a number of federal agencies. It will propose a 12 percent cut at the Education Department, a 12 percent cut at the Department of Health and Human Services, an 11 percent cut at the Interior Department, a 23 percent cut at the State Department, a 32 percent cut at the Environmental Protection Agency and a 22 percent cut at the Transportation Department, according to the summary.
However, Trump is proposing to boost defense spending to $750 billion, and to begin funding the new Space Force.
Almost all of the proposals would require congressional approval, and lawmakers have dismissed cuts of similar size in Trump's past budgets. However, White House officials have signaled they plan to fight over the budget much harder this year, believing it provides a sharp contrast between Democrats and Republicans heading into next year's elections.
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Mascaro and Jill Colvin of The Associated Press; and by Karoun Demirjian, Damian Paletta, Erica Werner and Tony Romm of The Washington Post.
A Section on 03/11/2019